A Day Off

A Day Off

When I read books featuring characters living with mental illness, I always wonder if my main pet peeve will happen. It always bothers me when the plot catches up to the characters and they mysteriously lose all signs of their mental illness before facing off against their biggest foe.

A character who has anxiety meeting new people is suddenly able to make a rousing speech and inspire a revolution. A character who panics frequently becomes mysteriously calm before fighting a dragon or climbing aboard an enemy spaceship. And specific disorders like OCD are often not mentioned in books at all, so there’s hardly a chance of a character experiencing an obsession or compulsion in the plot’s climax.

As a child, that was always a mystery to me. I often wondered: How did the characters do it? How did they conquer their hardest challenge with so much ease that the author didn’t even have to write anything on the page? I wanted a how-to guide to help me do the same thing so I could go on an epic adventure. I thought there had to be some kind of secret I didn’t know yet, some esoteric knowledge about how to do this that I was going to discover when I got older.

What I realized instead was that the authors were relying on one of two flaws to get them through: laziness or the assumption that someone displaying symptoms of mental illness can’t actually do a quest.

In terms of laziness, some writers don’t want to figure out how to incorporate mental illness into a plot that is likely complex on its own. It can be hard enough to get characters to a certain point without giving them further challenges, but at the same time, it’s disheartening to see that the writer wasn’t willing to try to brainstorm a solution.

The worse option is that the writer might believe there is no way for a character to “feed into” mental illness and also get through the plot of a story. In my opinion, this erases the value of representation the writer was trying to get across, since in the end, the character was able to get a day off from their mental illness to save the world (or whatever else the plot may be).

As someone who has literally never had a day off, and who is currently smarting from a long day of overthinking and feeling overwhelmed by the tasks I have yet to do, I feel discouraged when I see a writer do this. I feel like the problems in my own life are more insurmountable because of the lack of belief that it is, in fact, possible to solve a problem even when dealing with extra problems on top of it.

Throughout my life, I’ve had to deal with a lot of problems. Nothing quite like what I’d find in a fantasy novel, but still, I’ve had to work my way through my fair share of difficulty without the “easy way out” of simply pretending my OCD doesn’t exist. And, as a writer myself, I wanted to see if there was a way for my favorite genre to feature characters using their mental illnesses as a way to help with the plot, not as something to throw away when the going gets tough.

This is why, when I had the opportunity, I loved co-writing a musical featuring Tass - a fantasy mechanic with OCD - but felt overwhelmed at the thought. I was very keen on the idea, but I didn’t have examples of fantasy characters with OCD to base my story on. I didn’t have anything to go off except my own experiences and books I didn’t like - and sure, it took a lot more thought and brainstorming. But in the end, I was able to find a way for Tass to use his obsessions to help with the plot instead of ignoring them to make my writing process more convenient.

And, in my own life, I try to remind myself of this. On hard days when every little step of what should be an easy task feels like an obstacle, I pretend that I’m living in the outline of a story and tell myself that there are always options. They might not be quick, easy, or practical, but they do exist, and there’s nothing stopping me from continuing to brainstorm until I find something that works.

Sometimes, I wish I could take a day off from my OCD. I wonder what it would be like to go through life without being anxious so often, to not overthink every move I make. But for me - just like it shouldn’t be for writers creating characters with mental illness - it’s not an option, and the best thing I can do is hone my creativity for both fictional stories and real life to help me find optimal solutions.      

 Michelle Cohen, a writer in the Chicago area, was diagnosed with OCD at age 3. She hopes to educate others about her condition and end the stigma against mental illness.

When you Can't Eat Your Words

When You Can’t Eat Your Words

In my recent appearance on No Shame On U’s podcast, I advised friends and family members of people with OCD to not point out their loved one’s compulsions to avoid embarrassment and shame. But what happens if you point out a compulsion by accident?

My mom encountered this situation this week when, at a shift at work, she was in charge of overseeing a coffee machine for hospital patients’ families. Someone she didn’t know came in and started to refill the coffee machine’s water tank, even though it was almost filled to the top. He continued to do so until Mom - who was used to people not knowing how the coffee machine worked - told him that the tank didn’t need to be full to work properly.

Mom told me that the man’s demeanor changed, and it was as if he deflated. He explained to her that he has OCD, and one of his compulsions is that he always needs to ensure that the tank of water by any coffee machine he’s using is full. Even after he brews his cup, he returns to fill the coffee maker entirely.

Mom told me that he was deeply embarrassed to have a compulsion pointed out - but in her defense, she had no idea his behavior was anything other than a run-of-the-mill encounter with someone who didn’t know how to use the coffee machine.

In response, Mom told him that it was completely fine with her, then noted that he had in fact made her job easier because she didn’t have to refill the tank herself. He stayed and continued to make his coffee, but even when he returned to the room again later, Mom said he still seemed embarrassed.

Mom told me that her response was an attempt at a joke or some other way to put him at ease, but she wasn’t sure whether she had done the right thing. She said she wouldn’t have pointed out a compulsion if she knew that’s what it was, but it happened anyway - and she asked me later that night if she had done everything right given the circumstances.

Although I can’t speak for every person with OCD, I can certainly speak for myself that whenever anyone noticed any of my compulsions, I was deeply ashamed and wanted to just melt into the floor. I was used to people pointing out my compulsions in a bullying way, but no one has ever pointed out a compulsion of mine in a way legitimately designed to help - or at least I never saw it in that way.

I knew my family saw my compulsions and assumed that they were just as embarrassed about them as I was. I tried not to talk about them unless asked repeatedly, and I was always mortified to admit that I had to touch something a certain number of times or only drink water from water fountains out of the corner of my mouth.

And the worst part for me was that I knew in my heart that my compulsions weren’t actually going to help me. I knew that I was just looking weirder than before for no reason. I knew that praying three times instead of once wasn’t going to keep me from throwing up, but I did it anyway, because the alternative was to wallow in endless anxiety that washed over me in waves so powerful that I didn’t know what to do.

Now that I’m older, and have had years of therapy, I have alternate coping mechanisms. I don’t need compulsions the way I did when I was younger - a path that some people with OCD end up going down - but I still remember how strong the impulses were, as if I was a puppet on a string dancing for my anxiety’s sake.

I can’t offer personal experience with compulsions as an adult, but I can imagine that after having OCD for a long time, it would be even more embarrassing to perform compulsions in public. Whenever mine were pointed out as a child or teenager, I felt like a spotlight had been pointed at me, and there was a perfect opportunity for everyone to laugh. Look at the girl who thinks she’s smart, but can’t step on a sidewalk crack!

I can imagine the deer-in-the-headlights look Mom described to me, as well as how the man seemed to want to get out of the situation quickly. But I did have to commend her for responding quickly and kindly when she made a mistake, which stopped the situation from getting any worse.

Instead of asking more questions or offering pity, Mom did her best to defuse the situation and make the man feel as comfortable as possible. There was damage done, but at least it was one blow that came from innocence instead of repeated and deliberate mocking of what he needed to do to survive.

This may sound dramatic, but even years after performing regular compulsions, I remember how much of my life they took up, how many pleasant memories they usurped. I remember how, in stressful situations, they always got worse - and I am proud to have a mom who saw someone in a stressful situation, made a comment out of a desire to help, and then supported a total stranger the best she could.

When I was growing up, I never would have had the courage to admit that I was doing a compulsion to a total stranger. I barely admitted it to the people who I loved most, and many times then, they didn’t know what to say. It’s experiences like these that show me that we as a society are making progress toward a more open and tolerant world.

 Michelle Cohen, a writer in the Chicago area, was diagnosed with OCD at age 3. She hopes to educate others about her condition and end the stigma against mental illness.

Still Good

Still Good

In my favorite Disney movie, Lilo and Stitch, Stitch tells the Grand Councilwoman that the family he has found is “little and broken but still good.”

As someone who grew up always thinking in absolutes, this idea was unusual to me, but very important to encounter. I struggled - and still do - to not think of things as black or white, wonderful or terrible. And coming from a movie where I strongly identified with the main character - a little girl who grows up doing things differently from her peers and with no friends until a literal alien arrives from outer space - it was a great way for me to open my eyes to the “gray areas” of thinking.

I had an opportunity to practice this type of thinking this week as I permanently joined a D&D group for the first time since my longtime group ended abruptly several months ago.

It took all my coping mechanisms to get over the end - with absolutely no warning - of my group that had been meeting almost every week for the last two and a half years. I reached out to my support system, tried to distract myself in every way possible, and took my therapist’s advice to “control what you can” by writing a novelization of the story so I could end it in my own way.

Part of me wanted to find another group right away, but I was scared of getting burned again. This was the first group I’d been a part of where people weren’t extremely unreliable, horrible writers, or toxic to the point that I felt highly uncomfortable. Getting into my old group took such a huge amount of pure dumb luck that I didn’t think I’d be able to find a good group again, and focused on my own healing even though I missed it immensely.

Eventually, though, I decided to give it a shot. I looked around online and found a local group that I attended for two sessions, but it was such a different system of gameplay that I couldn’t figure out how to make it work. I couldn’t get involved in the story, and although I enjoyed meeting new people, I couldn’t enjoy the actual game. I ended up withdrawing from the game and staying in touch with the Dungeon Master (DM) and a few other people in the group, but I was still missing the activity that I’d gone there for.

And then, last week, my dear friend John* (name changed for privacy) asked if I would be interested in joining the group that he’s a part of for one session - and maybe more.

I instantly made excuses. I knew one person in the group with a really bad work ethic, and I assumed that - like in my old group - if one person didn’t show up, the rest of us wouldn’t be allowed to play. I assumed that no one would want me joining after the first session and that the group wouldn’t be reliable and that it would just be another letdown like the groups before the one that lasted for so long.

I then realized that, several times in the past, I had let these assumptions get between me and the opportunity to try something new. Even though this wouldn’t be the same exact thing as my old group, it could still be good - something that my all-or-nothing thought patterns that I learned about in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) doesn’t usually let me consider.

And so, I took my friend up on his offer. I asked him to connect me to the DM of this group, who told me that I could pick between several characters the people in the party had already met. He gave me plenty of backstory information, and I ended up selecting a paladin.

That was the first difference - for the last 2 and a half years, I played a bard from level 1 to 20. This was a level 3 paladin of a different race (human, this time) and the setting was from official content (the Baldur’s Gate series of games) as opposed to an original world made up by my previous group’s DM.

I found plenty more differences when I actually went to the session. I only knew two people - my friend and the person with the bad work ethic. The group was bigger, which I thought would be a problem but ended up not being one. I was behind on content instead of knowing better than anyone else what was going on.

But somehow, it was still good.

I got that wonderful feeling of sitting down with some new people - new friends - and playing one of my favorite games. Even though I was playing a different character in a different setting with different people, the feeling of finding a great group was still there.

And so, I asked at the end of the session if I could become a permanent member of the group. I was offered an enthusiastic “yes!” from everyone and was able to put D&D on my calendar for the first time in months.

This experience has helped me realize that my thought patterns may be limiting my experiences. If I want everything to be perfect and won’t settle for less, I won’t have the opportunity to find things that are “still good” - enough to make me happy even if they aren’t exactly as I imagined them.

Michelle Cohen, a writer in the Chicago area, was diagnosed with OCD at age 3. She hopes to educate others about her condition and end the stigma against mental illness.

Nice to Finally Meet You

Nice To Finally Meet You

Hi, my name is Michelle Cohen, and I’m proud to introduce myself as No Shame On U’s head blogger for the last three and a half years.

Until this post, I was known as “Ellie” - a nickname I’ve never personally used. I’m not much for nicknames, but I was determined to make sure no one would know that I was the writer behind this blog - especially since I had just moved to Chicago to take a job at JUF, without knowing anyone.

I thought my work and social life would go away if I said who I was.

I grew up feeling like I was worth less than other people because of my mental health condition, and even though I was told over and over by my family that I was wrong, that didn’t make the thought go away any easier.

I had gotten used to people noticing ways in which I was different - my diet, my interests, my anxieties and fears - and using that to set me apart. I moved to Chicago as a fresh start and wanted nothing more than to present as “normal” of a first impression as I could.

I couldn’t stand the thought of my coworkers in my brand-new job thinking less of me for having OCD. And so, when I found out about No Shame On U and reached out to ask if I could write posts, I was determined to remain anonymous.

Anonymity felt safe, but after nearly four years of writing about my mental health experiences, it also felt stifling. There’s little about my mental health journey that long-term readers don’t know about me. But beyond sharing stories through the written word, I felt like there was no way I could keep spreading the idea of a world free of the stigma against mental illness.

And so, I decided to make an appearance on No Shame On U’s podcast and reveal my name to the community. While my family members and close friends who knew were surprised, they only had one question for me: Why pull back the cover after so long?

Part of it is because I am trying to get a book published about my experiences. I’d like to help people feel like they’re not alone and destigmatize mental health one story at a time - like I’ve been doing with this blog, but on a bigger scale. It’s been my lifelong dream to be a published author and there is no truer story I can tell than the one I live every day.

The book - which is currently named I Eat French Fries With A Fork in honor of my first post here - is a compilation of essays, some of which are adapted from here, others which I have never shared before. They are filled with the joy of my positive obsessions and the pain of negative ones. They take a trip deep into the harrowing night ten years ago when I thought I would die by my obsessions if not from my body, and the therapy, friendships, and kindness that pulled me out of despair and into my currently happy life.

I would love to share my story more widely as I continue to share it here - and in addition to that, I wanted to share my name to go along with one of the principles of my life: I put my name on things I’m proud of.

At work, I don’t turn in articles that I’m not proud of if they’re going to have my byline. I take pride in what I put my name on, and I wanted to show people - including the people at work who I was so afraid of - that I am not ashamed of being myself.

I am not ashamed that I grew up doing visible compulsions.

I am not ashamed that it took me until I was eighteen to try mac and cheese, sleep away from home for more than a night, and have my first sincere friend.

I am not ashamed that it took me a long time to do things other people around me have found easy, whether that was drinking orange juice, having my first kiss, or recovering from medical trauma.

I am not ashamed that I take SSRI medication every day, and I have relied on a variety of kinds of therapy throughout my life to stay afloat.

And most importantly, writing this blog and book have helped me realize that I shouldn’t be ashamed to not be “normal.”

This is who I am, and it’s not changing. No matter how much I continue to evolve and grow, I do so with a neurodivergent mind and that makes a huge difference. I was recently asked, if I could choose to take an imaginary cure and become neurotypical, if I would - and the thought scared me. I don’t know who I am without OCD, and whoever engages with me in any way gets to know it somehow. Whether it means I don’t eat at work lunches or get way too excited about conventions, it’s part of me that I have learned to work with and if that part of me is not welcome, I am not welcome.

I sincerely hope, as I send this out to the community, that I will be welcomed. I hope that, unlike the experiences I had in my childhood and early adulthood, people will see that I’m trying my hardest and am determined to help others do the same.

So, here I am. I hope you’ve enjoyed my story so far, and I look forward to continuing my active involvement at No Shame On U and in the realm of mental health advocacy for plenty of time to come.

Michelle Cohen, a writer in the Chicago area, was diagnosed with OCD at age 3. She hopes to educate others about her condition and end the stigma against mental illness.

Give What You Don't Have

This week, I found myself thinking about a piece of advice I received from my mom: “Give what you don’t have.”

She means it in the way of giving someone something that you want deeply for yourself, to find fulfillment in the act of giving even if you can’t receive what you want. I had an opportunity to do this when - during a Pokemon Go event - I met the four-year-old child of a friend’s friend.

Jake (name changed for privacy) was eager to learn how to play the game. So eager that he ran into poles and didn’t notice when it was time to cross the street, in fact - and he was so full of questions for anyone who would give him the time of day. Most people wanted to keep the Pokemon Go event going faster than what he could do, but I found myself hanging back, enthused about his discovery of something to get so excited about.

It reminded me a lot of myself as a kid - trying to engage the adults around me in whatever my newest obsession was, and Pokemon was absolutely one of them. The trading card game came out when I was six years old and I quickly got my entire family involved.

Dad played with me as much as I wanted, competitively. Nana didn’t quite understand the game, so she told me to look at her hand of cards and play whichever one was best for me (much to my surprise, I almost always won). Mom humored me with occasional games and somehow became the Cohen family champion in a bracket tournament I set up.

I used many of my cards in decks, but I also had a big binder with all of my extra cards arranged in numerical order of the set. It was Base Set, the first one to ever come out, and it included all of my favorite pokemon from the original 151. I had a diglett card that I used to take into my dad’s office and slap him with it while yelling “Mud Slap,” one of the moves on the card, before I would run away giggling. And when he went to Japan for a business trip, he brought me back a pack from the Team Rocket expansion, and gave it to me when I lost a tooth. I pulled the rarest and most expensive card from the set: a Dark Charizard, plotting evilly on the front of the card I couldn’t read but loved to bits anyway.

I loved my cards so much, even when my initial obsession with Pokemon faded a little. It’s something that has stuck with me all my life, but back then, I didn’t know that. All I knew was that a girl in my grade, Caitlyn (name changed for privacy), came up to me one day on the playground and asked me if she could have my Pokemon cards for her little brother who was learning to play.

I wanted her to stop bullying me. I wanted her to tell the other girls to do the same. I thought it would be a good trade - something I loved for something I needed. I thought I was being mature and doing what I needed to do, making sacrifices like a proper adult. And so, I snuck the binder to school the next day and gave it to her.

When my parents found out, they weren’t mad - just incredibly sad. My dad was so hurt that I hadn’t kept the Dark Charizard. Truth was, I meant to take it out of the binder, but forgot. I instantly felt so guilty that I couldn’t wait for school the next day so I could undo my mistake.

But as soon as I went to Caitlyn and asked for the cards back, she said she’d lost them.

It didn’t stop me from begging her with increasing desperation for the next few weeks. It didn’t stop her from telling me to kill myself in middle school - the same bullying I feared and hated. And the exchange never left my mind, to the point that even years later, I reached out to her on Facebook to see if she had any idea of where the cards could be and offered to pay for their safe return. She’d told me she had thought of me when her parents cleared out their house, but found nothing.

I don’t think I’ll ever know for sure what happened to those cards. When I had my mental health breakdown in my junior year of college, I equated having Pokemon cards with feeling good, and spent money recklessly to get a collection again. I’ve sold most of the cards I impulsively bought back then, thanks to the bad memories, but I’ve kept some and over the years I’ve gotten more.

The only problem is, these cards are all different and new - and when I’m having a bad time mental-health-wise, I need things to stay the same. It’s why I watch Lord of the Rings on repeat or listen to the same song on my Pandora station over and over. But the Base Set cards I once owned and loved are now worth way more than I can justify spending.

The practical side of me misses the fact that any cards I wasn’t particularly emotionally attached to would be worth hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars - and I’d be able to keep the ones I loved. It would be my choice, as an adult, and I wouldn’t feel like I was being backed into a corner. The sentimental side of me misses the cards I used to play with on the living room floor, spreading them out and putting them in decks and playing with my family. I still have the memories, but they feel tainted with shame.

I am ashamed that my younger self felt so desperate that I thought the only way to avoid bullying was to give away the cards for nothing. As an adult, I sometimes wondered why no one stepped in and forced Caitlyn’s parents to give me back the cards right away, even if it made the bullying worse. But the school would never have helped and my parents wouldn’t have wanted me to get bullied more, and now, decades later, it’s far too late.

I did, at one point, buy a Japanese Dark Charizard card on eBay. I tell my friends about how Dad brought it back for me from Japan and how thrilled I was, and I keep it in a place of honor on my desk along with the very, very few cards I treasure as much as my old ones.

But sometimes, when I’m particularly down on myself, I’ll look at the Dark Charizard on my desk and see something different.

I bought you to fill a hole you can’t fill.

You’re not my Charizard.

My Charizard that Dad brought me from Japan is gone forever.

When I listen to people talking about dreams that will never come to fruition, I feel silly for thinking about my old Pokemon card binder that I might not even recognize if I were to miraculously find it. I don’t remember what the cover looked like or what any of the pages looked like beyond the first. I don’t remember if the cards were Shadowless, which would mean they were worth thousands more.

What I do remember is the immense shame of having given in to peer pressure, having felt like this was something I had to do to protect myself because no one else was looking out for me in this way. My parents did their best when I was at home, but in school, I had to deal with everything alone.

All these thoughts ran through my head when my friend asked me if Jake could have a few of my cards. I wanted him to feel like he was getting something special - an adult who was feeding into an interest instead of making it a bother like so many other people did even on that one day I met him. I picked out a Pikachu in a hat because it’s his favorite, and a Diglett because it was mine. I picked out shiny cards that would appeal to a child and cards that made me smile with nostalgia.

I’m not going to get my collection back. But a little kid is going to have the option to run into his parents’ or little brother’s room and whack them with a Diglett card while yelling “Mud Slap” - and maybe my Dark Charizard is out there too, enjoying a good life with the rest of my collection.

As a writer, and someone trying to deal with the difficulties of my past, all I can do is make up the story and try to move on in the best way possible - and not let other people’s treatment of me get between me and my happiness again.

Michelle, a writer in the Chicago area, was diagnosed with OCD at age 3. She hopes to educate others about her condition and end the stigma against mental illness.